Insights from Engagedly’s State of AI in HRM, 2nd Edition Survey.
Suppose you’ve ever researched the impact of employee training on retention. In that case, you’d most likely have read a statistic along the following lines – Roughly 45% of employees say they’re more likely to stay in their role if they received training. In recent years, statistics like these demonstrate the importance of employee training at the workplace and why it proves to be worth the investment.
However, while employees’ Learning and Development (L&D) is just one aspect, it’s essential that employers and HR experts also track these using certain key employee training metrics to ensure they’re proving effective. But what are employee training metrics?
Employee training metrics refer to quantitive measures that offer employers insights into the effectiveness of their training modules, how engaging their workforce finds them, and to what degree these learnings are leveraged at the workplace.
The data gathered from these metrics can help you, as an HR or L&D manager, refine your training modules to make them more engaging and cost-effective and ensure they align with the organization’s overall goals.
While employee training is important to retain employees within your organization for longer, its benefits far exceed this singular aspect. Effective training programs have the potential to maximize your ROI and generate greater revenue.
What’s more, it’s not just employers who benefit from these, but employees too (59%) say that training programs improve their overall job performance and can contribute to their happiness at the workplace. Evidently, training programs are beneficial to every key stakeholder in an organization, all of which benefit the customer in the end.
Aside from the Return on Investment they offer, the need for employee training metrics becomes crucial as they help HR professionals monitor several key aspects. For example –
An equally important aspect of employee training is that it offers businesses the benefit of making data-driven decisions. Here’s how –
In this section, we look at 7 key ways in which HR experts leverage employee training metrics to make data-driven decisions within their organizations. Further, the use of talent management tools makes the process of disseminating employee training much easier, and we explore these aspects in this section.
Every penny saved is a penny earned. In the context of employee training, every lesson or aspect of a training module that an employee retains long after results in higher performance outputs and saves costs on re-training in the future.
Knowledge retention is key, as the more information an employee retains at the end of a training module benefits the organization as a whole. There are several ways you can help reinforce and measure knowledge retention. While the training modules themselves can include elements such as gamified learning, elements of microlearning, or even video-based content, you can also measure retention at the end of a module in various ways.
A post-learning test or assessment, for instance, can help evaluate how much information an employee has retained. Similarly, surveys and quizzes too can help achieve a similar goal, help them apply the concepts learned in practical ways, and reinforce learning.
However, a key aspect of employee training is reinforcing learning over time. Spaced learning, which builds on the idea of routinely reinforcing crucial information over time rather than all at once, can help improve retention, learning, and performance outcomes.
While retention is among the most crucial aspects of employee training, its benefits will be lost if employees don’t complete their training modules in the first place. One of the key metrics for evaluating training and development is the training completion rate. You can measure the training completion rate using the following formula –
Completion rate = Number of employees who completed the training / Number of employees who signed up or are required to complete the training * 100.
Measuring the training completion rate can help you identify any issues in participation and address them to ensure everyone participates in their professional development. With one-on-one interactions or the use of feedback forms, you can identify the reasons behind low participation and address any concerns employees might have.
Engagement with the learning material is key to ensuring maximum completion and retention. Most modern LMS systems have built-in features that track the time an individual spends on a course. This, in itself, offers a way of measuring the extent to which the learning modules engage learners.
However, monitoring the time spent on courses must be combined with tools like surveys and in-course feedback forms. These can help gather insights from learners on the quality of the material, the ease of understanding it, and any improvements that can help make the module more engaging.
After all, the more engaged an employee is in the material, the more likely they are to understand and retain the information they learn. This, in turn, improves their performance, as discussed in the section on measuring knowledge retention. In fact, according to LinkedIn, 76% of Gen Z learners believe learning to be crucial to a successful career.
This is reinforced by the fact that when learners are provided with learning material that’s engaging, they’re more likely to complete courses and retain the information they learn, leading to better learning outcomes.
The skills employees gain via training modules will only benefit the organization if they’re put into practice. As a result, assessing skill application is among the fundamental metrics HR experts must track.
For instance, if a particular module was introduced before the onset of a new project, you can evaluate if the skills learned are being effectively used to maximize output and achieve the project’s goals.
Further, employee training can also involve using simulations or projects that give learners the opportunity to apply the skills they learned to achieve a particular outcome. Assessing the results of these projects can help you evaluate the extent to which the learning modules proved to be effective.
Another key aspect to monitor the success of employee training is to evaluate its impact on the business as a whole.
An improvement in sales figures, for example, is one metric you can monitor as an HR expert. The Sales Close Rate, more specifically, refers to the ratio of sales closed with respect to the number of inquiries received.
You can calculate this using the formula below –
Sales Close Rate = Total sales / Total number of inquiries.
An improvement in individual employees’ Sales Close Rate can indicate the success of employee training.
The Customer Satisfaction Rating is another metric HR experts monitor. This refers to the ratio of positive responses to the total number of responses a business receives. Effective employee training can lead to a significant improvement in customer satisfaction, along with a reduction in errors.
Here’s how you can calculate the Customer Satisfaction Rating –
Customer Satisfaction Rating = Number of positive responses / Total number of responses.
When implemented comprehensively, employee training can have tangible benefits for a business’s success. Such training helps employees better understand their customers’ needs, thereby allowing them to address the root cause of their problems for more satisfactory results.
Furthermore, it also equips them with the skill to diffuse difficult situations and be proactive to ensure an improvement in the overall customer experience.
The statistics on employees’ demand for L&D at the workplace make one thing clear—employees value organizations that invest in their professional development. In fact, 39% of employees believe that their scope for professional development is the most important factor affecting their job satisfaction.
HR experts use various tools, such as surveys and feedback mechanisms, to gather data on employee satisfaction with workplace training. The data gathered can offer key insights into how the training helped employees or what improvements they’d like to see.
In an increasingly saturated job market, such data can help organizations proactively offer well-curated learning modules to attract and retain the best talent.
The purpose of calculating training ROI is to evaluate the monetary benefit the training provides to employees. The data gathered is a crucial indicator of the effectiveness of the training program and whether or not it needs to be improved to achieve a higher ROI.
The formula for measuring the training ROI is as follows –
Training ROI = (Training benefits – Training costs) / Training Costs * 100
The high training ROI achieved from a program can be the result of various metrics – improved sales figures, improved client retention, and so on. A comprehensive and effective training program thus offers businesses considerable financial benefits in the long term.
Employee training is a non-negotiable in today’s market, especially since employees themselves are playing a more active role in determining the demands for their professional development. However, for employee training to be both cost-effective and contribute to your employee’s professional growth, it must be continuously monitored and improved.
This guide offers seven key metrics that HR experts monitor to evaluate the effectiveness of employee training. These metrics ensure a high ROI, maximum employee satisfaction, and customer satisfaction at the very end.
Improving employee training can also be a gateway to maximizing the impact of HR policies on employee well-being. With Engagedly, you can develop a culture that effectively trains employees to deliver higher outputs and maximize revenue. What’s more, this tool caters to organizations of all sizes, from those with just under 50 employees to more than 2500 employees.
Training metrics offer several benefits, including evaluating the success of a training program, measuring retention rates, aligning the training with the organization’s goals, and ultimately improving efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Employee training metrics help fill skill gaps among employees and equip them with the tools needed to maximize their output. They also help evaluate and revamp training modules to improve knowledge retention.
HR experts can measure the outcome of training programs using data gathered from the Learning Management System they deploy, surveys, focus groups, and even employee performance data.
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